The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Jerry Szoka and GRID Radio, an unlicensed microradio station in Cleveland, Ohio who’s been sparring with the FCC since 1998 and went off the air after receiving a federal court injunction in 2000.
This is the second microradio case to be declined recently by the Supremes; the first was Minneapolis’ Beat Radio, whose petition for certiorari was turned away last year. Continue reading “Supreme Court Declines Grid Radio's Appeal”
Category: Media Policy
Bring the Noise
The implementation of digital radio is on the agenda for the FCC’s meeting this Thursday (Oct. 10). According to the summary, “The Commission will consider a First Report and Order concerning digital operation by terrestrial radio broadcasters.”
What this means is that the FCC will lay out the ground rules for the rollout of in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital audio broadcasting. It has been noted by multiple sources (both from within the radio industry and without) that IBOC is a technological nightmare with the potential to cause massive interference between stations on both the FM and AM dials. Its sound quality may also be worse than conventional analog signals. Continue reading “Bring the Noise”
FCC Begins Manufacturing Consent for Ownership Rule Changes
There has been a lot of news since the last update; the Schnazz will get you up to speed on post-NAB conference coverage and the FCC’s latest moves to let the media industry get even more incestuous with itself. The Mosquito Fleet feature has also been properly fleshed out.
Lucky for us, the FCC now has a special section on its website devoted to the media ownership rule review now underway. There’s a lot of info there, but one area to examine further is a slew of “studies” the agency commissioned to examine the current media landscape. The studies look at everything from viewpoint diversity between media formats, to advertising rates, to radio formats, and loads more.
It should come as no surprise that the studies are heavily skewed toward economic analyses of the state of the media, with a few token perspectives thrown in from journalistic, cultural, and sociological perspectives. So much for the objective assessment of reality. Continue reading “FCC Begins Manufacturing Consent for Ownership Rule Changes”
ABCNN? Don't Laugh
Well, spank my ass and call me Charlie, the L.A. Times reports today that AOL Time Warner has been in talks with Disney about possibly spinning off the ABC News division and merging it with CNN as a stand-alone company. Apparently this has been a morsel of discourse between the two for about 18 months now.
This isn’t the first time Time Warner has tried to spin off CNN; it apparently danced with CBS for a while before that deal fell through. Continue reading “ABCNN? Don't Laugh”
Screwed LPFM Applicants to get Second Chance
This week, the FCC announced a remedial window for LPFM applicants who applied for a license before Congress gutted the plan and disqualified many who’d already applied. These applicants were shafted when the channels that they applied for, which were initially considered open by the FCC’s initial LPFM rule, were suddenly declared off-limits by Congressional fiat. For more than a year now, these applicants have been in a sort of limbo, unable to amend their applications to account for the lower number of open frequencies.
A five-day window for those applicants will open in late October – but many have been permanently disqualified from an LPFM license thanks to the NAB/NPR shenanigans in Congress. Some of those who had applied have gone on the air anyway, and don’t have much interest in trying to re-engage the FCC in the licensing process. Even so, it’s a nice gesture on the FCC’s part. Continue reading “Screwed LPFM Applicants to get Second Chance”
Michael Powell Wants Regulatory Slaughter, New Microradio Documentary in the Works, Interesting Uses for LPFM
The FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force has just wrapped up a series of four “workshops” on how best the agency can divvy up our electromagnetic spectrum.
In remarks at the closing workshop (held Aug. 9), FCC Chairman Michael Powell outlined four goals he wants to see the FCC work toward when it comes to managing spectrum. Goal #2 is the one that almost made me lose my lunch: Continue reading “Michael Powell Wants Regulatory Slaughter, New Microradio Documentary in the Works, Interesting Uses for LPFM”
A/V Archive Unleashed, Launch Imminent, Random Notes
I hereby present to you the Audio Library, which contains more than four gigabytes of material. In addition to 40+ hours of shortwave pirate clips (many new to the ‘net), featured MP3s and all things Mbanna, there’s some worthy video for you to check out as well.
Examples include “Free Radio: A Video Documentary” and “Evil Empire,” an oldie but still goodie, especially with the pending NAB radio convention in Seattle (just a month and a half away) and Clear Channel’s recent higher-than-usual public visibility.
Remember: this stuff just represents what was previously encoded, plus a backlog of stuff I hadn’t gotten to putting online yet. And we haven’t even gotten to media collage! Based on this, it’s feeling about time to officially “launch” DIYmedia, which means getting back into the real swing of things, with regular updates and the like. Look for that to happen within a week or so, once we get a few more essentials online. Continue reading “A/V Archive Unleashed, Launch Imminent, Random Notes”
LPFM: Crowded Field, Slim Pickings
2001 has been a less-than-stellar year for the FCC’s newborn low power FM radio (LPFM) service. Nearly two years have passed since LPFM’s adoption, and it’s been a year since Congress eviscerated the plan, leaving the FCC to implement only a fraction of the new stations it was planning to.
It’s a long time to watch and wait, and so far there are less new LPFM stations on the air then there are fingers on two hands. Many potential station applicants are waiting patiently for a cooperative but hobbled bureaucracy to do the mountain of paperwork generated by thousands of filings.
Some are fighting for their life because of competing applications. Religious groups have snapped up just about half of the construction permits given out for new stations so far, but other major players in the race for the airwaves are state and local governments. Continue reading “LPFM: Crowded Field, Slim Pickings”
Microradio: Moving Forward
As the government increases its police powers to root out “terrorists,” the microradio movement has been waiting quietly to see what changes there would be on the battlefield of the airwaves. If recent events are any indicator, it seems to be back to “business as usual.”
Enforcement agents with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have been busy lately, making contact with stations in Virginia, California and Florida during the last three weeks. The terms of engagement do not seem drastically different than they did before 9/11 – visits and letters are still the primary weapons and the feared influx of SWAT-style raids has not materialized.
In fact, of the three most recent FCC actions, only one has resulted in a fine – the rest were seemingly just for intimidation purposes. Continue reading “Microradio: Moving Forward”
LPFM in Court
Prayze FM vs. FCC
Prayze FM has never sought publicity for its fight, preferring to quietly slug it out in court with the FCC over its right to broadcast, license or not.
Since February 1998, Prayze has methodically ground its way through the federal judicial system, winning some small battles and losing some big ones. Until this year.
Now, Prayze is full of hope again, and it holds hope for a forced expansion of the FCC’s new LPFM service as a result of its struggle. Continue reading “LPFM in Court”